Then Joe looked back and saw something pass over Don Ennis’s face as Ennis looked up and saw his wife—a shadow that washed over him as quickly as it came. It was a look of pure, naked, contemptuous hatred.
Nineteen
I apologize for Don,” Stella told Joe as she walked him across the parking lot toward his pickup after the meeting had ended and he left Don, Illoway, Suhn, and Johnson at the table. “He gets so forceful at times he doesn’t realize how he’s coming across to people who don’t know him.”
“No need to apologize,” Joe said, still a little stunned by his glimpse into Don’s soul. He wondered if Stella had seen it, if she was used to her husband looking at her like that. He searched for something to say, feeling a bit flustered by Stella’s presence.
“Thank you again for your help the other night,” Joe said.
“You already thanked me.”
She was wearing an oxblood turtleneck sweater and black slacks. The color of the sweater made her lips look even more striking than he remembered, like overripe fruit.
She walked with a dancer’s grace, as if her shoes didn’t really touch the ground.
“Don’s just not happy when he’s not doing something really big,” Stella explained, a little sadly. “I thought we were moving out here to retire, to ride horses and go rafting. I love to go whitewater rafting.”
“This is a good place for it,” Joe said, trying to make conversation, knowing how lame his response sounded.
“Please don’t patronize me.”
“Sorry.” Joe felt his ears begin to burn.
Stella smiled slightly, and a little sadly. “The deal was that when Don sold his companies in New York and Pennsylvania, we would buy out here and really live. It was a choice between going to Aspen, Steamboat Springs, Sun Valley, Santa Fe, or here. We both liked the Tetons, so Wyoming was the winner. Your governor was one of the first people Don met, and we are among his biggest contributors. Don probably told you that.”
“He left that part out,” Joe said.
“I’m surprised. He usually leads with it.”
“He told me about the vice president, though.”
“Ah,” she said. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this. It’s odd; it seems comfortable to talk to you. It’s like I’ve known you.”
Joe stopped at his pickup. The easy familiarity of their conversation had him flummoxed, and slightly alarmed. He felt comfortable with her, as if they had history together.
“Don’s just frustrated,” she said.
“Yup, I understand that.”
Stella’s black Lincoln Navigator was parked on the other side of Joe’s pickup.
Joe said, “What I’m not sure I understand is the way he looked at you when you spoke up.” He couldn’t believe he said it, and felt immediately that he shouldn’t have.
Stella paused, looked at Joe quizzically. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“For a second there,” Joe said, treading into water he wasn’t sure he belonged in, “he looked like some kind of reptile.”
She smiled at Joe, a dazzle of white teeth framed by those lips. Her smile triggered something in him, and he knew he reacted to it.
“What?” she asked.
“It’s kind of ridiculous,” he said. “I just thought of something I hadn’t thought of in a long time. In college there was this song I really liked called ‘Stella’s Smile.’”
“It was about me,” she said.
“Really?”
“What, do you think I’ve spent my life married to Don Ennis? I’m just his most recent. I had a life, you know. I was in the music business in LA. Everybody in my crowd was in the business when I was in high school. I met the lead singer and he wrote that song.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really,” she said, a little exasperated. “Some people went to college, some of us went on the road. Some of us grew up real fast, Joe.”
He stared at her.
“The lead singer originally called it ‘Stella’s Lips,’ but luckily his manager talked him out of that, thank God.”
“I’ve never met anyone who had a song written about them,” Joe said.
“Now you have,” she said dismissively. But he thought she was pleased that he knew. “I have a question for you.
You said Don looked like a reptile. Do you use animal metaphors often when describing people?” She looked straight at him, with boldness, as she had in the restaurant when he first saw her.
